Posted June 14th, 2018, 10:07 AM IST

Bengaluru: Ajinkya Rahane won the toss and elected to bat in what is a historic Test for Asghar Stanikzai-led Afghanistan at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium here on Thursday.

#TeamIndia Captain @ajinkyarahane88 wins the toss and elects to bat first against @ACBofficials.#TheHistoricFirst #INDvAFG pic.twitter.com/wuEspC2G8b

— BCCI (@BCCI) June 14, 2018
Karun Nair, Shardul Thakur, Kuldeep Yadav and Navdeep Saini could not make it to India's playing XI as KL Rahul set to bat in the middle order with all the three openers are in the team.

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Replying to @BCCI
Take a look at the Playing XI for the two teams at #TheHistoricFirst.#INDvAFG

9:09 AM - Jun 14, 2018
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Afghanistan, bruised by war and what not back home, will make their Test debut as they take on India in the one-off Test.

While Afghanistan are playing their first ever Test, there is no shortage of confidence. The Afghanistan skipper had said that his team has better spinners – Rashid Khan, Mujeeb ur Rahman, Zahir Khan and Hamza Hotak – than India, who have the likes of R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav in their ranks.

While the next five days will define which set of spinners will have an upperhand, Indian batting has a proven pedigree even without Virat Kohli’s presence in the squad.

Afghanistan, meanwhile, will have Mohammad Shahzad, who will lead their batting charge against the Indian attack.